


i'm sorry (but i fell in love tonight)

by jakefitzgerald (orphan_account)



Category: Halsey (Musician), Twenty One Pilots
Genre: A Happy Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, FINALLY AM I RIGHT, M/M, Sequel, jenna is already dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6487810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/jakefitzgerald
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"and then there's water falling down. he doesn't even mumble about not having an umbrella. he just ... laughs. it's the first time he's really laughed since ... he doesn't know. it's been awhile. it's been a long while."—joshler</p><p> </p><p>or; the sequel everyone wanted with the ending everyone wanted</p><p> </p><p>notice; updates are slow</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm sorry (but i fell in love tonight)

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE FOR READING THE FIRST WORK IN THIS SERIES!!  
> i don't know how many chapters this will have, and updates may be slower due to school, but i hope you all enjoy!  
> i love you all.  
> <3

**i. room 217**

Tyler Joseph is not stupid, he knows there’s no heartbeat coming from her chest. That doesn’t mean he can just move his head. He’s weighted down to her, stuck there.

The ring on his finger tells him he can't move. The vows they renewed last summer tell him that he will feel it pounding again. Her dress in a little box with his suit tell him he has to stay. The world is screaming that he belongs there.

But he knows he’s not going to hear anything. He knows that her heart is still forever.

“She’s dead.” he says, whisper quiet against her chest.

It doesn’t feel true. He prepped for months, ever since she let the cancer fall between her laps, and it’s only just now hitting him _he’s not ready._

“I should have kissed her…” he mutters, “she asked… ring power..”

It’s too late.

Her heart is dead inside her ribs. Jenna Joseph is gone. His wife is gone. Dead.

(A little voice says he’s free.)

Are his cheeks wet? Does he feel sad? He doesn’t know. It’s more numb than he’d expected. There’s a sort of nothing to knowing she’s dead. No part of him thinks he can ruin their vows even more and run to the boy with the red curly hair.

“Ty?” Oh. Speak of the devil… or something like that.

He doesn’t even lift his head. Josh just understands. Jenna Joseph is dead. This is a fact. She died half an hour ago and he hasn’t freed his fingers from her’s. She died half an hour ago and he still hasn’t accepted it.

He can feel a ring press against his palm. It’s instinctual at this point, his fingers find Josh’s.

Everything is not magically all better but at least it isn’t so _cold_ anymore.

(Josh closes Jenna’s eyes and Tyler can’t help but cry.)

 

**ii. the kitchen**

His favorite thing about Ashley is that she doesn't ask him if he's okay because the funeral is next week and she knows that he doesn't have an answer.

Instead, she puts together sandwiches with white bread cut into triangles and more pesto than he thinks he's ever eaten in his life and talks about the Knicks game she caught on TV and how she knows a chick who can get them all tickets to see their next game live.

He nods but doesn't smile even though he normally would go on a rant about them. Josh's hand is too close and too far from his to rant about the Knicks.

"Would you wanna go to that too, Josh, or is that just gonna be a Tyler and me thing?" She asks, turning the radio down.

"That sounds like a you and Tyler thing, I don't care for basketball," the redhead scoffs, glancing at Tyler in hopes of a loud gasp.

There's not one.

They're quiet until the tea goes off, loud and high. Ashley tries to grin like Jenna isn't dead before turning to get it. Maybe it'd cheer him up if he was even looking at her.

(It's through the corner of his eyes but he can't look away from Josh.)

He smiles just enough to tell her how much he loves her cooking and then she carries the conversation for him.

 

**iii. st patrick’s cathedral**

The eulogy makes his eyes prickle a little but he doesn’t let a single tear fall from his lashes. He’s stronger than that. Dear God, let him be stronger than that.

“It’s okay,” Ashley whispers to his earlobe, her breath warm and her eyes wet. She grips his hand tighter when he shakes his head.

Lynn’s eyes ghost past him, emptier than he thinks he looks. “I think Jenna wouldn’t want us to be.. To be ‘strong.’ She’d want us to cry if that’s how we feel.”

Tyler Joseph will not cry.

He can’t cry now.

It’s too late.

He could've cried and kissed her on her deathbed, he could've cried when she told him she was sick, he could've cried a thousand times but this is not one of them. He's already left tears in this church. Grandma's funeral killed him. This one can't hurt him.

(He won’t let it.)

“You don’t have to cry,” Josh tells him, lips set just against his ear. Another hand grips tighter.

He takes a moment, not swallowing a lump in his throat or dabbing at his eyes with a hand that isn’t free. Then he says, calmly, clearly, “I don’t want to.”

 

  
**iv. new york, new york**

Autumn is Josh’s favorite season. He paints it all the time and he jumps around when the days get shorter again and he grabs the scarf Grandma knit him.

“The sky smells like pumpkin,” he laughs, twirling around with his beanie (Ashley’s, really, but Josh will always say it’s his) slipping it off his head and pulling Tyler along.

“It does,” Tyler admits.

And then there's water falling down. He doesn't even mumble about not having an umbrella. He just ... Laughs. It's the first time he's really laughed since ... He doesn't know. It's been awhile. It's been a long while.

"May I have this dance?" Josh asks, grinning wildly. Something compels Tyler to say yes. They haven't danced together since Tyler was 13 (he specifically recalls not wanting to say yes to some girl, but what was her name?) and he hasn't slow danced at all since he was 24 and in that tiny, tiny kitchen with the girl she told himself was Princess Cinderella.

But now, now he's being spun and his scarf is spinning out around him and everything feels okay.

It doesn't even cross his mind that he's a widower now.

 

**v. the night**

He lets himself cry and it's terrible. His eyes are swollen and red and his throat hurts from the sobbing. Fuck. Why did he let himself cry? Things shouldn't be this painful.

Can't he go back?

Of course he can't. Time is something he could never control. She couldn't either. She had so little control over time. He cries harder at that.

Everything is wrong. Where did everything go wrong? When did he start hurting this much?

"I don't know," he sobs, clutching his pillow. This bed is so much bigger without someone to share it with. Even the nights he passed out on the couch because she locked the bedroom door, it wasn't this empty. Or was it? Maybe it was but he never noticed because at least she was there.

He thinks everything could have been okay if he had had the guts to tell Josh he loves him.

(Or maybe it was something else.)

He hates the emptiness in his bed and in his heart.

"You," he hiccups into the pillow, "you swore ... We'd be fine."

They're not at all fine.

 

**vi. his apartment**

 

It's raining again but he walks through the city with his hands in his pocket and somewhere to belong. His feet have long since adjusted to the path to Josh Dun's shared apartment (but Ashley’s out of town tonight, working on photography with Patrick).

They're going to watch movies.

Mean Girls, Disney, movie musicals, Leonardo DiCaprio movies (Josh has an unhealthy obsession with him). It'll be just like when they were kids (and Jenna was still alive and he had never lost a baby girl). He's been looking forward to it all week.

It's as great he'd thought it would be. They laugh and eat weird food and dance and sing along to everything. He stays the night.

Josh is fast asleep in the same bed as him like when they were little kids but it's not at all like that. Tyler is wide awake, eyes unwilling to shut and dream of him and Jenna and all that went wrong.

He watches Josh and whispers to himself that it's not creepy and it's okay.

Their limbs are too tangled up for him to go get water or take sleeping pills. Josh is too beautiful for him to want to anyways.

Tyler has never wanted to kiss someone more, not even when he fell on Jenna's lap in that subway all those years ago.

His body is screaming for him to just do it. He can't even remember Ashley’s name or that she's Josh's fiance. There has never been a Jenna Black. There has never been anyone else but Josh Dun and him sitting in that window for hours and talking forever and holding his hand. They are all that is in this world.

(He still remembers the day he realized Josh Dun was the world.)

Tyler wants to kiss his best friend in the entire, entire, entire world so goddamn badly. He wants to, needs to, it's the only thing that can put out the fire in his soul and burning up his eyes.

So he does.

Josh’s eyes don’t open but he swears he feels a smile against his lips.

He blinks back tears as he pulls away, rolling on his side and crying himself to sleep.

 

**vii. e henry street**

Josh makes a phone call in the car and then they’re all getting pizza together. Lynn, Chris, Kelly, Jordan and his girlfriend Elena, Josh’s mom, Patrick, everyone who matters, even Gerard put aside his law firm for this.

(Except Jenna Joseph.)

Tyler sits right next to Josh and aw's over Elena showing off the diamond ring Jordan put on her finger even though they've been married since they were little kids. It doesn't show but Josh's fingers kill him the whole time, drawing patterns on his hand.

Everything is great again. They're laughing and smiling and it's like Jenna isn't even dead.

And then Ashley stands up, grinning ear to ear, and says the one thing he doesn't want to hear.

"I’m pregnant."

Instead of screaming, or crying, or dying, Tyler hugs her. He's the first to congratulate them because he's happy for them.

(He's only a little jealous of Jenna.)

 

**viii. w 55th street**

Drinking tea by yourself is only a little bit lonely. He's fine. He'll be a godfather soon and he has two weddings to look forward to and everything is fine. He's getting over everything bad and just remembering his ex-girlfriends.

It's funny. Really, he swears.

Lynn was the only one who didn't cheat and he thinks that's funny. It's funny. It has to be. It's funny and he's perfectly fine with it. He's fine with everything.

(Jenna was voted most likely to be okay with anything.)

His eyes sting and that's it.

(Maybe he should visit her grave.)

Is that what good widowers do? He doesn't know.

(They weren't good spouses.)

His entire body does not ache as he thinks of the funeral. Tyler Joseph is fine. Perfectly, completely, absolutely fine. Nothing hurts him now.

He doesn't grieve at her grave after he finishes his tea.

 

**ix. the bay window**

He sits in a peaceful sort of quiet with his head on Josh's shoulder. They could be seventeen again, hell, they could be younger. Fifteen, fourteen. She could be alive.

Tyler tries not to think of that.

(His stomach hurts.)

"Joshy," he whispers.

Josh grins at the old pet name. "Yeah, Ty?"

Silence. It's just a moment. A hand over a stomach, a sigh through empty lips. "What would have happened if Jenna hadn't miscarried?"

A cell phone rings before Josh can answer. It's still Darth Vader's theme. He answers politely, tamely. It's another moment.

Then he drops the phone and is sobbing.

"Ashley is dead. C— car crash ... Drunk — hic — driver."

(Jenna was wrong. Jenna was so, so wrong.)


End file.
